Time spent off the air hasn't been kind to 'Family Guy'

Published 10:00 pm, Friday, April 29, 2005

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"Family Guy"

"Family Guy"

Time spent off the air hasn't been kind to 'Family Guy'

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There used to be a time when your friends and co-workers fondly quoted the best zingers from that week's episode of Fox's "The Simpsons." Nowadays, they're more likely to rhapsodize about Comedy Central's "South Park." A sign of the times if there ever was one; as for what it means, well, that's open to interpretation.

One way to look at it is that irreverence for its own sake, "The Simpsons' " life juice, is out. "South Park's" undying ability to find new ways to give the bird to propriety and authoritarian rules is, in these days of an FCC driven more by theocracy than bureaucracy, very much in.

That puts the resurrected "Family Guy," returning Sunday to Fox (KCPQ/13, 9 p.m.) after three years of cancellation, somewhere between two animated institutions. And it isn't helped by creator Seth MacFarlane's too-similar creation, "American Dad," which has its timeslot premiere at 9:30.

To recall its last go-round, "Family Guy" was punished for not being on par with "The Simpsons." Now, having lived on cable and broadcast television, its problem may be that the residents of Quahog aren't nearly as sharp or relevant as the folks of "South Park." We'll concede that it's tough to judge the trajectory of an entire season based on one episode, but in tomorrow's premiere, MacFarlane vicariously takes a second honeymoon via title character Peter Griffin (voiced by MacFarlane) and his wife, Lois (Alex Borstein).

Only he does so by turning their weekend trip into an homage to "North by Northwest," clunkily marrying "The Passion of the Christ" with "Rush Hour," sprinkling in a few humorless flashback gags about pedophilia, sodomy and spousal abuse for good measure. Three years off the air has not made the "Family Guy" team that much more creative, which shows in the highly original moment when a cartoon Chris Tucker offers Jesus a joint.

The only saving grace is a side mission by Brian, the boozy talking dog, and Stewie, the family's matricidal, evil genius of an infant. This may sound like business as usual to "Family Guy" fans, but the episode is so baroque in its execution that it's tough to see how the series can regain its direction. Mildly clever pop-cultural references aside, there's a sad lack of brains behind the bawdiness.

Maybe MacFarlane is leaving the commentary to "American Dad," which is basically the "Family Guy" with marginally more intelligent characters, replacing Brian with an alien and Stewie with a horny goldfish. The hook is that Dad Stan Smith (again, MacFarlane) is a misogynistic, right-wing CIA agent who would love to have Francine (Wendy Schaal) cook and clean at home. His 18-year-old daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane) is a liberal, his 13-year-old son Steve (Scott Grimes) is a geek, and tomorrow's episode, at least, was funnier than the series that inspired it.

But Peter, Lois, Meg (Mila Kunis), Chris (Seth Green), Brian and Stewie have some momentum behind them. They're still several shades more feral a family than Homer and Marge's brood, and obviously fond as ever of making burger out of sacred cows.

Though treated as the prodigal son these days, "Family Guy's" writers and viewers need to remember that it was once the black sheep of the Fox lineup. Shoved into three terrible timeslots in two years, the series shriveled up and died an ignominious death at the end of 2002.

But it ended up thriving in death while the network that killed it withered. When the first 28 episodes were released on DVD in April 2003, it sold 2.2 million copies, becoming the second-highest-selling TV show on DVD. As if that wasn't enough, reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim animation block boosted late-night viewership to the point that more young men were tuning in to it than to David Letterman or Jay Leno.

Fox green-lighted 35 new episodes of "Family Guy," so it appears the network is in it for the long haul. If the show doesn't make it, that new material has a home waiting with Adult Swim, which will air each episode 11 days after its runs on Fox.

Should the Griffins regain but an iota of their quick wit, they'll still have a lot of work to do before they can hold a candle to the newest batch of "South Park" episodes. Within the past few weeks, the show has given us joyously inappropriate takes on the fiasco surrounding Terri Schiavo and Mr. Garrison's escalating self-centered dementia, manifested this season in the world's worst sex change.

Luckily for us, we'll have the chance to compare this weekend, because Comedy Central's airing all of this season's "South Park" episodes thus far tonight and tomorrow from 10 p.m. to midnight, providing fresh fodder for Monday morning office conversation.